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Weekend Opinionator: Obama’s Daisy Chain

The infamous Lyndon Johnson “Daisy” ad only aired once, which is one more time than we’re likely to see this ad from the Republican National Committee on broadcast television:

Of course, most of us have seen the L.B.J. ad a zillion times, as it became a news event, and thus has been replayed endlessly. In a sense, it seems as though the Johnson campaign somehow intuited the invention of the Internet, where even the most marginal video can become a sensation. In any case, the R.N.C. seems to be assuming that Web links and outtakes on newscasts will give the ad a broad circulation. (Yes, I suppose I’m obliging Michael Steele here.)

As Obama and Cheney duel over national security, how different are their positions?

Two questions: Is it a good parody? And what, exactly, is the G.O.P. pushing for in criticizing President Obama for not shutting down Guantánamo Bay?
It fails on both fronts, in the eyes of Betsy Newmark, my favorite paleocon schoolteacher:

I’m all for the GOP taking on the President on policies with which we disagree. And I appreciate a clever or even controversial web ab to do it with. But I am quite unimpressed with this first effort. The RNC is resurrecting the infamous 1964 Daily ad that the Johnson campaign ran one time against Barry Goldwater. They intercut the cute little girl picking petals off a daiy with quotes from Obama about closing Guantanamo and then quotes from Democrats who don’t want the detainees brought to the U.S.

This same concept could have been presented in many ways, but the choice of the Daisy ad is simply to shock and get free play on cable news over and over while partisans yell at each other about the context for the ad. I’m sure it will achieve that purpose.

But this is achieving a small goal with despicable means. If it was atrocious for the Johnson campaign to imply that Goldwater’s policies would lead to nuclear war, it is wrong to pull that card for criticizing Obama. There are plenty of arguments that can be used against Obama. Don’t go this route.

The ad could have been better, it could have been worse. If this is all they plan on hitting Obama and Democrats with, it will fail. Steele’s determination to be “aggressive” needs to extend to every issue and not just Gitmo.

Congress denying Obama the funds he requested for the closing of Guantanamo Bay, with Democrats like Obey stating clearly it is because there was no “concrete” plan behind the request, would have probably been a harder hitting message which would have reached into the minds of people that usually don’t soak up political news each and every day.

The new RNC ad shows Obama saying that it will be “easy” to close down Guantanamo, then airs the “Daisy” voiceover saying: “These are the stakes.” The suggestion appears to be that closing down Guantanamo potentially poses as big a threat as did the possibility of war with a nuclear-armed superpower — and that Obama’s move to close Guantanamo is as reckless and dangerous as Goldwater’s comments about possibly using nukes in Vietnam.

The ad, which also quotes Congressional Dems defecting from Obama on the issue, shows how neatly those Dems have fallen into the GOP’s trap by letting them drive the Gitmo debate. It has now enabled the Republicans to use the issue as a wedge and to use the words of Democrats to try to cast doubts on Obama’s ability to keep us safe.

If nothing else, the comparison of the stakes of Guantanamo to those of the Cold War signals how enormous the GOP’s ambitions are for the Guantanamo issue.

In 1964, LBJ’s presidential campaign aired its infamous “Daisy” ad, just once, to drive home the point that it wouldn’t be an especially good idea to have Barry Goldwater with his finger on the button.

Periodically, Republicans have tried to respond with “Daisy” ads of their own. In 2006, the RNC tried to scare the bejesus out of voters, suggesting a vote for Democratic congressional candidates is a vote for a nuclear attack by al Qaeda …

This isn’t an actual ad that television viewers will see; it’s a web ad that the RNC expects news networks to air, over and over again, for free. I suspect that part of the strategy will work pretty well.

For that matter, the video reinforces the consequences of Democrats on the Hill caving to conservative complaints and buying into the right’s fearmongering.

But the message itself is hopelessly absurd. To equate closing a detention facility with the threat of a nuclear war only suggests the RNC has a child-like understanding of national security threats.

It’s a desperate move from hapless RNC leaders.

Obviously, this whole discussion is just the undercard for Thursday’s main event — the dueling national-security speeches of President Obama and Dick Cheney — responses to which have been ably aggregated by my better half, Eric Etheridge (who also beat me to the “Daisy” ad), here and here. But the arguments might raise a question in an objective, or perhaps paranoid, mind: is Dick Cheney simply giving the president cover from his left flank when it comes to preserving Bush-era efforts in the war on terrorism?

If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.

The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an “enormous failure.” Obama suspended them upon his swearing-in. Now they’re back.

Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.

Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin takes a look at another of Krauthammer’s comments — “The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.” — and runs with it:

That, more than anything, might explain the oddly purposeless speech yesterday. The president did indeed protest too much, suggesting how much it must pain him (and certainly his disappointed supporters) to concede how much Bush got right. He might disparage the motives of his predecessor — how pedestrian that they should succumb to the urge for self-preservation, he sniffs — but he can’t escape the world in which he must now govern. Just as Bush did, he must find a secure location away from American cities and towns to house the worst-of-the-worst. Just as Bush did, he must find a procedure for processing wartime detainees. Just as Bush, he must avoid defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. And on and on it goes.

Yes, it must be infuriating to realize the all-purpose bogeyman of the Left had these challenges and more or less got it “right.” So Obama must pout and fuss, try to stomp on the news cycle of his predecessor’s vice president and deny, deny, and deny. But we come back to reality: he is not abandoning Iraq or Afghanistan, has no stand-in for Guantanamo, and isn’t about to risk dismantling the anti-terror architecture that has kept us safe. So all he can do is give a peevish speech complaining that he inherited a “mess.” Well, the “mess” served us well and it’s seemingly going to continue on for sometime.

If conservatives like Charles Krauthammer believe that Obama has adopted “with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program” on detentions — and hell, I’m not saying he hasn’t — then shouldn’t they be less dyspeptic over Obama? As a wise man once said, don’t hate, collaborate. Frankly, on detentions, they have a strong case for structural similarities with the Bush administration … Obama’s nice assurances about the rule of law notwithstanding. On interrogations, they don’t have nearly as strong a case, but as I’ve been writing, we really need to wait and see what the administration’s working group on CIA interrogations yields. Still, how about some first-principle statements?

And Taylor Marsh:

You simply cannot contend that you’re going to continue military tribunals, only with a twist, after promising change and think blowback won’t occur.

You cannot say you’re bringing change then reverse decision on releasing torture photos, which was hailed by the right and Dick Cheney as not only a flip flop, but siding with the Bush administration.

You cannot talk about law and order and the Constitution throughout a mostly laudable national security speech then say the people who concocted U.S. torture policy should not be held accountable.

And you cannot talk about ending [don’t-ask-don’t-tell] then think a long winding court route to ending it will bring cheers from die hard supporters who thought change meant reversal.

It’s going to take a lot more than one speech to break away from Bush’s policies. Action in the opposite direction on the things that caused Bush-Cheney to be held in such contempt would be a good start.

Obama has taken many of the same policies Bush ended up with, and he has made them credible to the country and the world. In his speech, Obama explained his decisions in a subtle and coherent way. He admitted that some problems are tough and allow no easy solution. He treated Americans as adults, and will have won their respect.

Do I wish he had been more gracious with and honest about the Bush administration officials whose policies he is benefiting from? Yes. But the bottom line is that Obama has taken a series of moderate and time-tested policy compromises. He has preserved and reformed them intelligently. He has fit them into a persuasive framework. By doing that, he has not made us less safe. He has made us more secure.

More secure, perhaps, but also more than a tad confused. So, what does President Obama really want — reform of the Bush-Cheney policies or just a rebranding of them? For insight, I spoke with one of the bêtes noires of the liberal imagination, John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations. “I think Obama’s heart is with the left on national security, but his real priority is with the left on domestic issues,” he told me. “Therefore, the national security left gets thrown under the bus to avoid jeopardizing the domestic objectives.” So the president is a pragmatic idealist? As good an explanation as I’ve heard to date …

Krauthammer is right, of course. President Obama has vindicated the Bush/Cheney programs by continuing them.
But, that is unlikely to make independents change back to the Republicans .

Independents and moderate Democrats switched and voted for Democrats, in the last election, because of the economy. If the economy improves, Democrats will continue to win; If the economy falters again, the Republicans will be back in power after the next Congressional elections.

The economy is what matters with the majority of the voters. To think otherwise is delusional.

Without question, Obama is no differerent to me than Bush regarding the wars. Sure Obama sounds better and is more articulate than Bush but the policies are the same.

On the campaign trail we were going to be out of Iraq in 16 months. Now its 19 with 50k troops remaining. No doubt they will be there for years to come.

Afganistan is now a black hole with no end in sight. Frankly, Obama is a pragmatic conservative that pretends he is a liberal. I am so dissappointed.

However, when Frontline aired its show about Obama when he became editor of the Harvard Law Review I saw for the first time who he is. And that person is a pragmatic moderate conservative.

Dr. Phil says, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. We see it in the wars, we see it in the ridiculously wishy washy credit card bill of rights, and sadly we will see it in the upcoming health care bill.

I can’t tell you how much I wish Bush had flip-flopped over going to war with Iraq.

I can’t tell you how much I wish Bush had not flip-flopped over our commitment to seeing Afghanistan to a safe place.

We have a President who is reasoned and deliberate and once he reaches a decision as to the best way to unravel this mess Cheney has left us it will stand the test of time. Something Cheney has too much of it seems (time that is).

“To equate closing a detention facility with the threat of a nuclear war only suggests the RNC has a child-like understanding of national security threats.”

Actually, this analysis lets the Republicans off too easy. It’s not that they have a child-like understanding of the threats; it’s that they think WE do. That is why this propaganda campaign will fail: after eight years of their lies, the people don’t believe them anymore. Instead, as Obama says, we “thirst for complexity,” and Obama respectfully gives it to us. The Republicans, on the other hand,. seem weirdly incapable of opening their mouths without talking down to the whole world. They just can’t help it, and they’re clueless that the whole world has tuned them out.

Krauthammer is a case in point. Obama repeatedly said during the campaign that “there will be a place for military commissions,” but Krauthammer just blithely pretends it never happened, and calls Obama a hypocrite for reaffirming it now.

The greatest weakness of the Republican message is that it disrespects the public’s intelligence. It seeks not to inform, but to promote ignorance. Even people who don’t read the fine print have caught on. The only ones who don’t seem to know are the Republicans themselves.

Cheney and his cohorts constantly reiterate that the Bush administration “kept America safe” “on their watch”, and that President Obama will weaken the country and make it vulnerable to attack. Leaving aside the by now trivialized point that 9/11 happened “on their watch” — we have just seen that the current administration is in fact keeping us safe: the planned attack in New York was prevented by good investigatory work (as well of course as by the planners’ fortunate ineptitude). A planned terrorist attack that is prevented, and the would-be perpetrators arrested — isn’t that “keeping America safe”?
Cheney, of course, would probably be happier if the attack had succeeded — he could score a lot of political points. He and his friends, as we know, want the President to fail — whatever it might cost ordinary people.

Bolton is wrong. Obama is also throwing the left under the bus on domestic issues as well. Three examples only. Obama has sided with the NRA, which he obviously fears. He also clearly seems to be in the process of siding with Blue Cross and the medical-industrial complex and throwing true universal health care coverage (not to mention single payer coverage) under the bus. And he seems to be turning into the most pro-Wall Street president in quite a while, throwing ordinary taxpayers and true, rigorous regulation of the financial world under the bus. The bus ride is becoming too bumpy for comfort.

The administration has been masterful at creating imagery. They take past policies or practices, decry their failure and then tweak them around the edges, They rebrand them with a new name that creates the image they want to project, but may or may not have anything to do with policy, and then teleprompter them to a fawning media that will create the next photo op for the President. If we look at what is really changing we see little. Where there has been change we see retreat (policies are announced before full consideration of how to implement and before the implications are understood resulting in more stumbling of Robert Gibbs at the press briefings).
We the people must demand results from our government, not words, pretty words, but just words.

President Obama v Dick Cheney
I would love to be the referee of this match as I bet you it will win the past. I like Dick and Obama.
Therefore the winner will come back again Mohamed Ali and Tony Woods or is it Tiger the Eveready Woods and the Hulk to live another day. We need this for many years to keep us entertained. What are your opinions, as we live by opinions not facts?
“If they cannot be convicted, then you release them. That’s what it means to have a justice system.”
– JAMEEL JAFFER, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, on
President Obama’s plan to hold terrorism suspects without
trial.
Evitable
PRONUNCIATION:
(EV-i-tuh-buhl)
MEANING:
Adjective: Capable of being avoided or evaded.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin evitare (to avoid).
USAGE:
“Racers insist they do it ‘for the glory’, which is a shrewd way of saying they do it for no good reason. This is an Entirely Evitable Event.”
Don Kahle; Kinetic Challenge Recalls Rickies; The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon); Jul 18, 2008.
I thank you
Firozali.Mulla

it’s obvious that neither bush or obama are directing foreign policy.being that basic policy on detention , goals of armed combat and ethics haven’t changed with a new president and are being driven by the military—specifically GATES. Obama is a puppet to the puppet master. he may be smart with a new face for the cameras BUT as we are seeing obama has little real power to change the direction of our country that is more and more being dominated by those in the military. OUR military has no end game for this mess that we are in and has shown no inclination to provide one WHY? are our soldiers so expendable?? why else would our soldiers be sent back to war time and again until the soldiers crack under the pressure , get wounded or die. The united states that i believed in has fallen to one of deceit changing life values and untrustworthyness. where lying and stretching the truth to make the appearence of fair and decent governing has snowballed into the norm. the statue of liberty should be crying

The Republicans, as exemplified by Cheney, are nothing more than opportunists. I don’t believe for one moment the Cheney/Bush administration policies kept us safe from another terrorist attack. It’s just dumb luck it turned out that way. But now they can claim to be the experts on “keeping America safe.”

Consistent with this self appointed title, Cheney and the Republicans will keep sowing seeds of doubt in Obama’s abilities as a “war president.” And if, God forbid, there should be another terrorist attack while Obama is president, those seeds could bare very bitter fruit for Obama and the Democrats.

Pundits say “but if there isn’t another attack Cheney will look like a fool.” Nonsense, any gambler would take those odds. Cheney and his party have nothing to lose and everything to gain with this strategy. Let’s hope, for the country’s sake, Cheney’s luck has finally run out and he’s left with no choice but to fold and go home.

Must things always be black or white? There is a huge difference between using highly unfair military commissions as default treatment for people held in Guantanamo or elsewhere on the one hand, and using less unfair military commissions for the few people that are known and admitted to being dangerous but who cannot be given a regular trial any more because of the brutal ineptness of past policy on the other.

Legally speaking, they should go free together with all those who ended up in American ‘custody’ just because ‘our people’ could not distinguish terrorists from innocents and were loath to admit that, but the prima-facie unfairness of that procedure and the polarization that this would bring to American politics preclude such a ‘clean’ solution. On the other hand, it prevents complete political paralysis in the U.S. for a long time to come.

As for the argument of Cheney that America was kept safe, we should ask if “Americans” were kept safe. No, they were not. They were sent in harm’s way in large numbers and at huge expense so that there was no need for terrorists to come to America. The terrorists were being served American victims by the thousands on insufficiently armored platters. Again, a complete break with such policies in the short run would be logical, but would also lead to increased polarization and paralysis at home.

I seem to remember Hillary Clinton being vilified during the election for refusing to promise that the Iraq war would be wrapped up within a few weeks, and for having supported the idea of single payer health care in the past. Obama looks likely to deliver what he promised on health care during the campaign: nothing beyond a “round-table discussion”; and he is faltering on the war/torture/guantanemo front. Fortunately, “change” is completely non-specific.

He’ll never get behind inquiries into the illegal conduct of the previous administration because he doesn’t want to be crippled by the inevitable Republication revenge fixation that led from Watergate to the impeachment of Clinton. While being completely hypocritical, amoral, and possibly illegal to let them off the hook, I don’t think he has a realistic option if he wants to get a single thing done on any other front.

I simply think Obama ought to act in our national interest and not be shameful of our strength here and abroad. I think his moralizing is akin to Jimmy Carter, our most failed president in the second half of the 20th century. At least RIchard Nixon committed to protecting this country and began the process completed by Ronald Reagan to dismantle Communist empires that threatened our sovereignty.

Obama, is merely a manifestation of all that is wrong in this country, politically naive electorate, politicians from the President down in the pockets of the medical industry, Wall Street. corporate power elite and opportunism of the worst kind. I don’t understand why anyone here is complaining, he is the same person that back pedaled even while he was campaigning. How quickly people forget the scandals that provided us with a glimpse of the nefarious liar that he is, all swept under the carpet by his gang of campaign and legal aids.

You don’t always get what you want but you always get what you asked for. Enjoy the kool aid and use the snake oil for sun bathing. Rub it on each others backs.

I don’t really know what all the chatter is about. President Obama thought it may be possible to close Gitmo by next year, upon consultation and more information, he found this may not be possible.

Why is there such controversy over such small time changes? Sixteen months became nineteen months on the withdrawal from Iraq. So?

Flexibility in a President, with the incredible attributes of our present one, is to me be a great attirubte. Or are people still focused on President Bush’s inflexibility, that some called stubbornness.

Whose safer?
The one that was asleep at the switch was the “Bush Admin.”.

If I recall Bush and Cheney were warned by the Clinton admin. about a possible terrorist attack on the U.S. and that Bin Ladin was the one behind it. They chosed to ignore that warning, at the expense of our safety. Maybe they did because of the Bush’s close connections to the Bin Ladin family, I feel those connections should be investigated, thats probably why they let Bin Ladin escape from tora bora when they had him cornered.

Then they proceeded to trample our beloved “Constitution” and said it was to protect us and keep us safe, but whose going to protect us from them?

They lied to get us into a war against Iraq which caused much more Americans to get killed than the World Trade Center attack. If we would have foregone the Iraq war we would probably been out of Afghanistan by now and it would have been alot cheaper for us also. Look at how much money we lost because of the Iraq war.

I think Cheney should shut up, he and his antics put this country in more danger than any administration has in the last 100 years.

Let me just finish there, because it makes me upset just thinking about the whole mess they left our country in.

I feel much safer now that they no longer run things, and we have a real duly elected President. God bless our President and the United States of America.

Sure, Obama’s actions once in office are disappointing to all those interested in true justice. But there is a reality behind this not being articulated so far by mainstream media.
Obama can’t be blamed too harshly. His only real mistake was one of ambition: He wanted to be president in and of itself.
Here’s the reality: Any presidential candidate, regardless of race, who runs on a progressive agenda risks the possibility of being assassinated.
For any such candidate who wins, the prospect of assassination moves up a notch, to probability.
And any president, once in office, who actually tries to implement a progressive agenda assures his/her assassination by doing so.

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The Thread is an in-depth look at how the major news events and controversies of the day are being viewed and debated across the online spectrum. Compiled by Peter Catapano, an editor in The Times’s Opinion section, the Thread is published every Saturday in response to breaking news.